


The 30-Second Snog

by rightonmybins



Series: The Real Househusbands of Baker Street [19]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry Fluff, Angst and Humor, BAMF John Watson, Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Emotional pick-and-mix, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, For Science John, John is Sherlock's lab monkey, M/M, Sherlock has ulterior motives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 01:16:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightonmybins/pseuds/rightonmybins
Summary: Sherlock wants to test his new theory, but first he has to make John angry.That shouldn't take long.





	The 30-Second Snog

"Sherlock, that is the last time I will EVER go to the cinema with you."  
"Why, because I ate your popcorn while you weren't looking?"  
"NO, because you always ruin everything by over-explaining! I don't want to hear about the CGI effects! And I don't want you ever texting me again to say what a crap film this is, and why didn't we go see '2001' instead!"  
John stormed off down the street, leaving Sherlock standing under the lighted marquee.

When Sherlock caught up with him at the next corner, John was still in full flood about his cinematic sins.  
"It's bad enough that you're always talking over Netflix, but I thought at least if we went _to an actual cinema_ , you might shut up long enough for me to enjoy it! And even that didn't slow you down!"  
"But John - "  
"Seriously, Sherlock! I really do not need to know that THE VELOCIRAPTOR SCREECH IN 'JURASSIC PARK' IS A RECORDING OF TORTOISES HAVING SEX!"  
John stormed off again, and Sherlock trailed him home in thoughtful silence.

Sherlock could hear John expressing his wrath the moment he opened the front door. The sounds of rattling crockery, clashing metal, and banging cupboard doors echoed down the stairwell. Angry footsteps to and fro. Muttered profanity and not a few F-bombs. All indications that John was making tea, his customary non-firearm-related solution to all of life's problems.  
As Sherlock entered the kitchen, John turned on him: "And for your information, Mr. Exposition..."  
"John - " Sherlock began.  
"...I am not putting up with any more of your unwelcome, ill-timed info-dumps.” He slammed a mug on the table for emphasis.  
" - I know you're furious with me...” Sherlock continued in his special calm and condescending tone.  
"Too fucking right." He slammed the tea tin next to the mug.  
"And while I confess that I did it purposely, I hope you'll hear me out..."  
"You. Did. WHAT." John's voice dropped to a malevolent growl.

"I have formulated a theory, but in order to test it I first had to make you angry. And this provocation had to take place somewhere you wouldn't be likely to cause a scene - "  
The tea strainer zinged past Sherlock's head.  
" - because I needed to gauge your increasing irritation against your heightened determination to resist, and I correctly deduced that you'd elect to put up with the intensification of negative stimuli rather than to deny yourself the potential pleasure of seeing the film. Then I escalated the pressure and ate your popcorn. Well, not 'ate' exactly - I just dumped most of it on the floor."  
"I paid three quid for that popcorn!" John shouted.  
"And then I sent you a text and accurately hypothesized that you would react with a predictable display of ...."  
"Display of what!"  
"John, you are extremely skilled at communicating the exact level of your displeasure, most often by the relative force with which you slam the bedroom door."  
"Goddammit Sherlock…" Somehow a tea mug shattered in the kitchen sink.  
"And now I have stoked your anger to the perfect pitch of rage: I've ruined your evening, I've openly admitted to manipulating you for my own scientific curiosity, and have further insulted you by alluding to your propensity for dissolving into immature..."  
"Immature!" John exploded. "Pot and kettle come to mind!"  
"AND you've destroyed my favorite tea mug," Sherlock remarked. "But since I'm more than willing to bring this unfortunate episode to a conclusion, I ask that you do only one thing for me in return."  
"NO. I am not your fucking science experiment!" John gave up on the idea of tea and threw himself into his chair.  
"You are simply proving my point. Thank you."  
John simmered with fury but held his tongue. Sherlock was right - it was much too easy to rile him. He would not let Sherlock win a contest of wills. Again.  
So he responded with exaggerated courtesy and that patient, dangerous smile: "All right, Sherlock, what can I do to help bring this extremely unpleasant evening to an end, and I do mean an END. Just tell me what you want me to do."

"Kiss me."  
"WHAT." That malevolent growl again.  
"Or rather - let me kiss you. You need do nothing but stand there," Sherlock said, as though this was the most reasonable request in the world.  
"And then I just let you have your way with me?" John answered, with a humorless laugh. "Sod off."  
"A few seconds of your time, John, and I won't ask for anything beyond that. Just accommodate me in this and there is no further obligation."  
John's entire being radiated suppressed fury - then he shook his head in resignation because he was actually going to do it ( _why do I let him get away with this shit..._ ).  
He rose slowly, and wearily beckoned with both hands: "All right, Sherlock - come on, let's go. Get this apology over with."

John stood at parade rest, as unyielding as an oak tree - knees locked, arms behind his back, eyes fixed straight ahead. Sherlock took his rigid and stubbornly resistant body into his arms. And as he embraced John, he raised his left wrist away from John's shoulder ever so subtly and brought his watch into view.  
_Zero seconds... GO._

For the first 5 seconds nothing happened. Precisely nothing. Sherlock applied his lips to John's and pressed gently. It was like kissing Stonehenge.

But at the 5-second mark John began to thaw, just the slightest bit: Sherlock felt him relax and drop his shoulders. As Sherlock began nibbling very gently on his lower lip, John's heart began beating faster.

10 seconds... Sherlock drew John’s lower lip into his mouth and rolled his tongue over it; John’s arms fell to his sides and his eyes closed as his body responded involuntarily to Sherlock's kiss.

15 seconds... By now John was making contented little sounds (Sherlock loved those little sounds) and his hands rested on Sherlock's waist. When Sherlock escalated the pressure and added a little body English, John’s knees trembled.

20 seconds... Blood vessels dilated all over John's body, suffusing him with a faint flush and making every nerve end burn like a lighted fuse. His breath came faster. He shifted his weight against Sherlock and his clutching hands pulled Sherlock's shirt right out of his trousers.

By the 25-second mark John was fully engaged: body pressed hard against Sherlock's, hands buried in Sherlock's hair. His brain had replaced negative thoughts with feelings of exhilaration, warmth and desire, and he’d already forgotten anything that happened before the moment Sherlock took him into his arms.  
The long kiss had flooded his body with an intoxicating biochemical cocktail of hormones, neurotransmitters and endorphins that lit up his pleasure centers like a pinball machine, and John Watson whirled about in the middle of a sexy, emotional, chemically-charged brain party.

 _30 seconds!_  
Sherlock abruptly dropped his arms and pulled away from John, who stumbled at the sudden absence of support. Then he whipped out his pocket notebook and began to scribble.  
"Quickly, John! Tell me how you feel."  
"Er...." John shook his head to clear it a bit. Sherlock flapped the notebook at him.  
"John! Focus!"  
"I... yes, well. Fine. I guess. Warm. Tingly? Uh..." He explored his tender lips with tentative fingers.  
Sherlock dashed off his observations. "Good. Heartbeat decelerating? Respiration rate returning to normal? Any dizziness?"  
"Uh...no? Maybe." John stepped backward and unexpectedly fell arse-first into his armchair.  
"Jesus, Sherlock, just what the hell was that all about?"

"I do apologize for winding you up," Sherlock said briskly.  
"As you doubtless know, a disproportionate amount of brain space is taken up with processing information from the lips, as compared to the rest of our bodies. As we kissed, the release of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline was triggered by electrical signals from your lips, and the emotional portions of your brain quickly responded by producing powerful feelings of euphoria, pleasure, affection and attachment similar to those induced by certain drugs. Perhaps now you can more readily comprehend the addictive appeal of heroin and cocaine.

"In short - I postulated that a 30-second kiss would be sufficient to defuse and cancel out anger and to induce a response of warmth, attraction, love and bonding." Sherlock ticked a line in his notebook.  
"Hypothesis proven."

Sherlock seemed mightily pleased with himself.  
John, however, was aghast.  
"So that wasn't really an apology? THAT part was the experiment??"  
"Precisely. Making you angry is absurdly easy; I wanted to see how quickly it could be reversed. And now I have my answer - 30 seconds."  
"Oh you bastard."  
Sherlock held up one long forefinger to halt the conversation while he consulted his notebook again.  
John stood up and took a menacing step toward him, hands clenched with a massive urge to circle Sherlock's neck and squeeze it until he turned blue.  
"Also, John, since the lower lip is most erogenous because of its more numerous nerve endings..." His voice trailed off as he made additional notes.  
"Sherlock, your lower lip is dangerously close to my fist, so I'd be careful if I were you."  
But Sherlock just went on writing and muttering, and John sat down again, suddenly drained of anger as well as any remaining after-effects of the 30-second snog.  
Finally he said quietly, "Didn't you get any pleasure out of that? At all? It was just… _research_ to you?"  
“Well of course it was re – “  
Then Sherlock belatedly caught the tone in John’s voice, and he stopped writing and looked up. John's miserable, betrayed expression plainly said what even John's sharp, salty tongue could not.

He crossed over and knelt in front of John's chair.  
"John, I…. I do understand how I've hurt you, although what I was trying to do to was..."  
"Torture me?" John's tone was frigid.  
"No. Although as I said, it's absurdly easy to make you angry - unfortunately I simply do it without thinking. Most of the time.” The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched. “But often I don't know what to do to make you NOT angry with me."  
"An apology would be a good start," John said bitterly, cocking an eyebrow at him.  
"My apologies too often fall short - you always say." Sherlock avoided the reproach in John’s stern blue eyes.  
“I have no one to consult about these things - so as ever, I turned to science for an answer."

John said nothing. He couldn’t be blamed for letting Sherlock hang out there for a moment: he was only human, and he was hurt. He looked down at Sherlock, who was resting his forearms on John's thighs, fidgeting with the edge of John's jumper.  
After a long silence John pulled gently on one of his curls. "I'm just your personal petri dish, am I?"  
Sherlock finally raised his eyes, contrite.  
"No, John. I was searching for a way to make my apologies without words, without creating any of my usual misunderstandings. I needed to ensure that I could always make things right again."  
Sherlock sighed with remorse.  
"You're not my petri dish. You're a man, and a human being, and you are my love, my conscience, my other half. My better half. You did nothing to deserve that. And I would not have you angry with me for all the world.”

John stroked Sherlock's hair again, ran a thumb over his cheekbone.  
_And exactly why DO I let him get away with this shit?_   he asked himself once more. _Because I love him. God help me. God help us both._  
And because Sherlock - all evidence to the contrary - was human as well. And because human nature is inherently faulty and imperfect. And because, despite the great analytical brain he possessed, it was perhaps too easy to overlook the part of Sherlock Holmes that was still an awkward 12-year-old full of unfamiliar feelings and frightening emotions, whose best friend was his chemistry set and who found all of his answers about life in science books.

John put his hand over Sherlock's, which was busy worrying a loose strand of yarn on John’s jumper.  
“Stop that, now, you’ll unravel me.”  
“John, you unraveled me long ago.” Sherlock smiled at him.  
"And I did get something out of that. A 30-second lesson in humility – a concept with which I am not completely familiar. As you know.”  
In spite of himself, John smiled back.  
“And 30 seconds of very unscientific bliss with the man I love. I only regret I took such a roundabout way to get there.”

John plucked the little notebook out of Sherlock's other hand and flung it across the room.  
"Here's a little-known scientific fact for you. The average human being will spend two full weeks of his or her life kissing."  
“As much as that?” Sherlock said, not sounding surprised in the least. “Do you think perhaps we've fallen behind a bit?"  
"Yes, I do. It’s time for some serious catching-up."

**Author's Note:**

> The part about the tortoise-sex noise is true. Tortoises are sexual BAMFs.


End file.
